By now it has become well-known that our Party's idea of building
a people's front at the national level has come under equally sharp attacks from
both liquidationist and anarchist points of view. The liquidationist point of
view opposes it on the ground that the front, in its bid to challenge
authoritarianism/fascism practiced by Indira Gandhi, excludes sections of
comprador bourgeoisie and the parliamentary opposition from its ambit; while the
anarchist viewpoint is opposed to building any political front as such in the
name of upholding the 'basic line' of smashing the old state machinery. This is
an instance of both these 'extreme' viewpoints converging in their opposition to
the idea of building the front. Here we shall deal with the criticism of our
Party line made by a Party faction, Central Organising Committee (Party Unity),
in its journal Party Unity (August 1983 issue). Their criticism, we
believe, originates from the anarchist point of view and, in the process of
critically reviewing the same, we hope to further elaborate the theoretical
propositions that guide the building of the people's front.

Why a National Political Front?

The COC(PU) claims to have risen above narrow localism and agrees that to
organise and lead the masses in democratic mass movements of partial nature
on a national scale different national forums of transitory nature
can and should be formed. (emphasis added)

What happens to these national forums 'after the intensification of class
struggle to a certain degree and with the attainment of necessary conditions for
People's Democratic Front' (PDF)? This question remains unanswered.

To proceed. The PDF 'emerges in course of time with a revolutionary programme
of action and armed struggle as the main form of struggle', and further, it 'may
act as the forum for leading partial struggles on a national scale too'.

On the question of building PDF, COC(PU) claims to have rectified the Party's
line in the '70s on two counts. Firstly, they have rejected the rigid condition
of 'red political power in at least a few areas of the country' and replaced it
by 'extensive areas of armed struggle in the countryside, though the areas may
not be liberated zones'. Heaven only knows the difference between these two
conditions. If we possess 'extensive areas of armed struggle', is it not but
natural that a few of them will turn into red ones, or to put it the other way,
without developing a few red areas, is it at all possible to spread armed
struggle to extensive areas?

Secondly, they advocate a 'comprehensive policy' of united front as opposed
to the 'narrow policy' envisaged in the Party line of the '70s. This
comprehensiveness is defined thus: "to unite with various political parties and
forces, including those belonging to the parliamentary opposition camp, to fight
ESMA, NSA, Press Bill, price hike, capitulation to the ignominious conditions
imposed by the imperialist power bloc etc."

To sum up, either you have national forums including the parliamentary
opposition, to organise and lead democratic mass movements of partial nature on
a national scale or a PDF with extensive areas of armed struggle as the basis.

As far as the PDF is concerned, by their own admission, conditions have not
matured yet and one can safely presume that they are not likely to mature at
least in the near future. Now, our Party has simply refused to worship
spontaneity under the excuse of 'conditions have not matured'; it has also
refused to remain content with a national forum to lead democratic mass
movements of partial nature. The fact of the matter is that although we lack
extensive areas of armed struggle, we do possess quite a few areas of peasants'
resistance struggle in different parts of the country. We do exert great
ideological and political influence over many sections of the Indian people. If
we, the revolutionary and democratic forces of India, decide to join hands and
formulate an urgent programme of political action, we can indeed become an
important force. We can make effective moves to isolate the parliamentary
opposition including the revisionists from the mainstream of democratic
struggles, we can leave a revolutionary democratic imprint on the general
democratic movement, and we can forcefully project our alternative views on
burning questions of national politics. And in this way we can move one step
towards building PDF. Mind you, one step towards PDF and not PDF itself. This
one step should concern itself not just with mass movement of partial nature on
a national scale, rather it should stress the independent political mobilisation
of the masses and nationwide political struggles.

Learning from the past and living in the present, our Party has decided to
march one step towards the future, and this one step has caused all the
controversy. And, all phrase-mongering about PDF not withstanding, in the real
life of the present, one can well discern the convergence of liquidationist and
anarchist viewpoints in sacrificing the political initiative against autocracy
to the bourgeois opposition and in remaining content with national-level forums
together with the parliamentary opposition to organise and lead democratic mass
movements of partial nature on a national scale.

The people's front we envisage shall draw its forces exclusively from the
social support of New Democracy. This is a question of principle. The banner of
patriotism and national unity will only help it win over masses from the fold of
the big bourgeoisie and big landlords and also to gain support from enlightened
landlords and some bourgeois intellectuals. However, issue-based joint
activities with parties and mass organisations of the bourgeois and revisionist
opposition are never ruled out. What forms these will take, how are the
contradictions among them to be utilised, what rifts can be created among them,
what changes will take place in smaller parties and particular individual
leaders with the passage of time -- these are all things to be decided by the
tactics pursued by the front regarding them. We have very little experience in
this regard and it is obvious that there will be certain mistakes. We shall
learn from them and go on perfecting our policies.

The Front and Base Area

Reviewing the history of peasant struggles since Naxalbari, we find that the
armed peasant struggles -- whether in Naxalbari, Srikakulam or Birbhum -- did
not last for more than a year or two. And by 1976, except perhaps Bhojpur of
Bihar, all other areas of peasant struggle had suffered setbacks. It was only
after 1977 that these efforts were revived afresh to develop such areas and,
thanks to adjustments in the Party line, the areas of peasant struggle are now
lasting for much longer periods. In the Patna-Gaya-Bhojpur belt of Bihar,
peasants' resistance struggles have been maintained with advances here and
retreats there. The peasant upsurge in the Patna-Nalanda-Gaya region in
particular has assumed unprecedented proportions in recent years. Such efforts
are being made in many other places of India by us as well as by other factions
of the Party and there are important successes too.

Still, even in the most advanced areas of peasant struggle in Bihar, we
cannot venture to turn them into base areas in near future. On the questions of
unity with middle peasants and overcoming caste prejudices to win over large
sections of the middle and upper middle strata of the dominating castes of
landlords, we are yet to achieve any significant breakthrough. We also have a
long way to go in mobilising the masses politically and turning the class and
social balance in our favour before we take up the task of raising armed
struggle to a higher phase and building base areas. It is heartening to note
that comrades of the COC(PU) faction in Jehanabad have decided to shed some of
their initial absurd notions and have come to certain practical conclusions. One
of their sum-ups published in the ctober 1982 issue of Party Unity
says: "The nature and level of armed activities must correspond with the
existing level of mass movements and help to advance mass movements further,"
and, "at present the movement in general is being waged on partial issues. It is
therefore imperative at this stage to mobilise the broad masses of people by
taking advantage of the legal opportunities as well as by skilfully utilising
the different contradictions in the enemy camp." Therefore, as regards extending
armed struggle to wider areas, or in other words, taking decisive steps towards
building red areas, the demand, at present and also for a long time to come, is
to preserve our forces, develop them step by step, and attain a major
breakthrough in turning the balance of class forces in the areas of struggle, in
our favour. This is a point on which all serious revolutionaries of India, who
refuse to go the Nisith-Azizul way despite all provocations, share a common
opinion.

However, this realisation itself is not sufficient. Building base areas or
extending armed struggle to wider areas requires a favourable national situation
too. In China, as Chairman Mao put it, the continuous conflicts and war among
different sections of the ruling classes was a vital condition for the existence
and development of red areas. Conditions are different in India.

Inheriting a central colonial state apparatus, the Indian ruling classes,
through a parliament, have by and large been able to contain their
contradictions within limits. Universal suffrage and formal institutions of
bourgeois democracy have also had a soothing effect on the people's rebellions
and provided a fertile ground for the growth of social democracy. From time to
time the existing political system has gone through sharp stresses and strains
and the revolutionary and democratic forces have stepped in to utilise this
situation. In the present period conflicts are developing among sections of the
ruling classes, new social forces are demanding a new balance in the power
structure, the air is charged with cries against separatism and for national
integration, regional parties are asserting themselves vis-a-vis the national
parties, and communal and religious tensions are developing. The conflicts are
increasingly becoming unmanageable within the framework of existing institutions
and debates on centre-state relations, unitary versus federal character of the
state, transition to presidential form of government, etc., are various
manifestations of the political crisis which is shaping up in the form of a
constitutional crisis.

Instead of remaining a passive onlooker in this period of growing political
crisis, the Third Party Congress firmly decided to actively intervene in the
national political scene so as to turn the balance of social forces in favour of
revolution and endorsed the idea of building a people's front.

Comrades of COC(PU) agree that the two trends as discussed in the Party
Congress report (resistance struggles of the peasantry and democratic movements
of various sections of Indian people -Ed.) are running parallel in contemporary
India. But they disagree with the Congress declaration that the two trends must
be combined. Now, what does this combination mean? Building base areas in the
countryside is the central task of our Party and never for a moment will the
Party slacken its efforts on that score. And a people's front shall precisely
revolve around this task. Building a political front at the national level is
not a deviation from building base areas; on the contrary, taking the circuitous
route through a people's front is perhaps the only way to advance the same in
the concrete conditions prevailing in India.

The people's front, in its ultimate programme, definitely incorporates the
programme of New Democracy (if only you have enough patience to look at it and
make it a principle to indulge in criticisms only after authentic reading). It
has declared extra-parliamentary struggles as the main form of struggle and that
surely includes armed struggle. However, as it has to begin its journey in the
conditions prevailing around it -- conditions which are not matured, by your own
admission -- at present, it has to emphasise on political mobilisation for
immediate political and economic reforms, concentrate on exposing the hypocrisy
of government concessions and the outwardly democratic forms of awarding them,
and declare that, on its part, it will prefer peaceful methods of struggle, but
what course the people's movements ultimately take will depend on the
government's attitude towards them. Whatever shift it will be able to effect in
the correlation of class forces on a national scale will provide a new impetus
to the struggle for building base areas, and the changed conditions, in their
turn, will demand that it puts more and more emphasis on its maximum programme
and adopts militant measures -- to the extent of leading insurrections and armed
struggles and smashing the old state machinery -- to achieve that. In this
process, the people's front will transform itself into a full-fledged People's
Democratic Front. This must be the basic orientation of the front according to
our Party Congress.

This is the crux of the matter which certain people, victims as they are of
their past, just refuse to understand.

The Front and Election

The incorporation of the term 'parliamentary struggle' in our Party programme
has been attacked most virulently by the COC(PU) critique and it has predicted
our Party's definite 'submerging into the mire of parliamentarism'. Well, the
history of the Indian communist movement is replete with such instances of
degeneration and the people cannot be blamed for having apprehensions about our
Party in this regard. In a certain sense we too have such apprehensions. But
then, how does one do away with such a danger? By reverting to widespread
guerrilla actions and forming revolutionary governments overnight? Mahadeb
Mukherjee went in for all-out guerrilla actions and the Nisith group formed a
revolutionary government -- still all this only accelerated their submerging
into the mire of the worst kind of opportunism. We do not want to dig into the
past, yet it is quite well known that your sympathies lay with these persons
against us.

Wherein does the remedy lie then?

In the '7Os we had raised the great banner of 'boycott of elections' and
consequently plunged into developing armed struggle and building red areas. That
great upsurge had violently challenged, for the first time in the post-47 India,
each and every existing institution of our so-called bourgeois democracy, and
had striven to develop alternative centres of people's power. Herein lies the
great significance of that great upsurge and it could have never been possible
without the slogan of 'boycott of elections'. This part of our history
represents a glorious tradition of our Party and the martyrs and we have all
along upheld this tradition much to the chagrin of the renegades who malign the
great heritage of our Party in the name of rectifying past mistakes.

However, our revolution was defeated and all of us had to make adjustments
with institutions of the society in which we live. Now, some amongst us rushed
to make adjustments with the first signs of setback; they degraded the
revolutionary traditions and disgraced the revolutionary martyrs and even threw
the great red banner of CPI(ML) overboard. They are renegades who shamelessly
crawled to surrender to the enemy. We rightly hate them despite their claims of
being 'the first in rectifying the mistakes and rectifying them completely and
thoroughly'. There are others, the revolutionaries, who fought till the last,
who never surrendered to the enemy and fell to the ground while fighting. They
now find themselves in different conditions and are forced to make adjustments
with the existing institutions of the society, they are now regrouping their
lost forces and biding their time for the final onslaught. They do it
hesitatingly, and step by step, and for this they have to face no less ridicule
from different quarters including yours. Their present tactics represent the
continuation and logical development of their old tactics.

It is a futile theoretical exercise to decide our tactics regarding the
parliament on the basis of its character, i.e., whether the parliament is a
semi-colonial one or similar to the one in an independent bourgeois country.
Your task of exposing and smashing the parliament does not become any less
important because the parliament is semi-colonial, particularly when it provides
a favourable subjective condition for the growth of revisionism. Our tactics
towards the parliament can only be decided on the basis of the presence or
absence of conditions of upsurge.

The question of Marxist approach to parliament is basically a tactical one.
It is supposed to assume strategic dimensions in a semi-colonial country where
it is presumed that immediate revolutionary situation always exists enabling the
communists to go in for building base areas. However, it should be borne in mind
that after the Chinese revolution, not only revolutionaries but world
imperialism too has taken its lessons. It has made India its
showcase-cum-laboratory for experiments. Combined with the particularities of
the Indian conditions, the conspiracy of world imperialism and lots of other
factors, including the degeneration of socialist Russia into social-imperialism,
have led to the maintenance of the parliament and other such institutions for a
much longer period than in other countries of the Third World. While the basic
path remains basically the same, in many of its particular tactics, however, the
Indian revolution cannot be a copy of the Chinese revolution, if only for the
simple reason that we are making revolution in India of the '80s and not in
China of the '40s. Considering all these factors and the situation in
particular, which all serious revolutionaries agree is not that of immediately
going all-out for building red areas, it is necessary that we reconsider our
tactics regarding elections. At least on principle this should be regarded as a
tactical question. While readjusting our general tactics in conformity with the
actual situation we must, however, decide about the particular tactics regarding
elections by giving due weight to the specific character of the Indian
parliament in contradistinction to those of the West. Recognising the election
issue as a tactical question does not mean rushing for elections immediately and
everywhere indulging in all sorts of unprincipled compromises. By its negative
examples in this regard, the PCC acts as a good teacher. Adjustment in policy
does not mean renunciation of revolutionary struggles and pursuing, as in the
West, a policy of work inside the parliament and preparing for nationwide
insurrection for a very long period of time.

For the time being when you do not have the alternative model of people's
power nor can you go in for the same immediately, if you are to raise the
political consciousness of the people to the point of grasping the politics of
seizure of power, you can ignore the negative way of doing that only at your own
peril. Your representatives go to the enemy parliament and, through their
speeches inside and other propaganda outside, you expose the parliament, i.e.,
you explain to the masses which particular combination of the ruling classes
rules through the parliament and how. This task can well be carried out from
outside. However, if properly organised, communist representatives working
inside can particularly sharpen the exposure campaign.

You may well give a call for boycott of elections, but that immediately
demands from you to go all-out for armed struggle, for building base areas. In
theory you can live in your own utopia, but in practical politics there is no
midway. If on the one hand you call upon the people to boycott elections and on
the other hand describe the stage of the movement as that of partial struggles
(on whatever scale), you are deceiving yourself, indulging in mere sophistry and
in this case your boycott call will be just a passive one and for all practical
purposes, it will make the people follow this or that bourgeois party.

An underground party concentrating its energy on developing areas of
peasants' resistance struggle, a people's front emphasising extra-parliamentary
struggle as the main form of struggle, utilisation of election campaigns for the
sole purpose of exposing the real intentions behind the government measures like
concessions and reforms, and subordination of all participation in election to
the goal of unleashing mass initiative and developing mass movements -- these
are the conditions that can check a party's degeneration into the mire of
parliamentarism. There is no short cut and left phrasemongering will only hasten
this degeneration.

Mere repetition of the 'basic path' will not take you anywhere near the goal.
It is time for new experiments. And healthy polemics among the communist
revolutionaries will pave the way for real advance and the genuine Party Unity
worth the name.

Dear leaders of COC(PU), when tracks are submerged in flood waters, sometimes
to go north, you are forced to board a southbound train and travel upto a point.
We do not know if there are any serious differences between left phrasemongering
and left pretensions (the COC critique has charged us with left pretensions but
absolves us from left phrasemongering). If there are any, you are guilty of
both.